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In high school I was lucky enough to be surrounded by really supportive and unique friends. Maybe I just have thick skin, and having two brothers around school with me probably helped, but I can honestly say I never felt bullied to a point where it traumatized me. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t know kids that were bullies. I saw plenty of guys and girls that got through high school with the help of insults, mockery and ridiculous cruelty towards others. I just chose not to associate with that because, as popular as they were, to me they just looked pathetic.

People have worked so hard to protect those that have been a victim of bullying, but it doesn’t always help. What does help, however, is knowing that it actually does get better for those that rise above that garbage. At 22 I can look at my friends, the ones that chose a path away from all that catty, disgusting trash that is so typically associated with high school, and say that they have made successes out of their lives. They’ve gone onto college and trades and made actual careers out of their skills. They are in long-term relationships, their buying their first cars, renting their first apartments. They have it together.

Then there’s the other ones, the high school cool kids, I guess you call them. They’re the ones who have made the bars in town their homes, tacking on stints at rehab, illegitimate children and DUI’s to their half-completed community college degrees in English. They hang out with the same people, looking more pathetic as each year comes along. When I see them now there’s always a really quick, sympathetic conversation, always with a tinge of embarrassment as they saunter back to their pitchers of beer. I feel bad, but I guess when you peak at age 17 you try and hold onto that for as long as possible. Like this guy in this video, who is an actual representation of the future. He’s not an exception, he is a rule.

So if you’re not a cool kid, or you don’t fit into the norm of whatever high school is supposed to be, don’t worry! I never met those norms, and I loved high school. I have very minimal bad memories from my time jumping between theater and art and all those nerdy subjects that shouldn’t be considered cool, because they were and are cool. Just find who and what it takes to get through it, because life really, truly begins after graduation. It seriously does get better.